We watched the Aims of Education live stream earlier this evening, and my son also said “Oh yeah, I remember now what we did last year at this time.” Amazing how quickly a year goes by.
@uocparent I listened to it too. I was surprised at how many times she mentioned free inquiry, freedom of speech etc. This I kind of liked. I also listened to the address during orientation, because I was there to drop a friend off. I loved Dean Boyer’s historical perspective on Europe and Zimmer’s pedantic lecture on why UChicago is different. Paint me a “nerd”. All of them took pains to emphasize, freedom of speech, free inquiry, challenging ideas etc. Very different from a similar event, I attended with another friend at one of the HYPS schools.
Wrt the Aims of Education speech, for a while I squirmed uneasily as she kept going with the “Rah rah” on the founding women of the SSA. Even though I am a woman, I find this kind of women are the best propaganda quite discomforting, although I understand why she did it. I have plenty of strong male role models including my Dad (my Mom too) that I look up to and have learned things from. I don’t need exclusive “women role models” to feel a sense of self worth. Having said that, she brought it all together in the end pretty nicely. Not an A, but a solid B in my books 
@surelyhuman Thanks for the straightforward opinion on that speech. I might well have had the same reaction re: the women propaganda part. However, I haven’t seen it yet so now am intrigued. Hopefully it’s on youtube or the UChicago website.
@JBStillFlying The main issue I had with the extensive bio on the SSA founders was that it was not apparent what any of it had to do with “The Aims of Education” and it felt as though it was put there to highlight the contributions of women to the university, which is fine, but I personally felt she was going on too long with it without getting to the “So What” question. She did get to it finally though, so there is that.
@surelyhuman - others I’ve been communicating with this morning had the same impression as you. She’s the dean of SSA so it makes sense to tie in that school with the talk. Not good to go off topic. I’ll need to watch and see what I think of it.
OK I’m walking Post #84 back. Just finished watching and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of this talk. I actually think the discussion of Sophonisba Breckinridge and her colleagues was appropriate and even crucial, given what Dean Gorman-Smith was setting out to do, which was to demonstrate just how distinct the University of Chicago was - at that time - from other schools in opening doors of opportunity to pursue intellectual inquiry even among the field of social work - and to women in particular. Could these brilliant, remarkable and socially conscious pioneers of the very early 20th century been able to accomplish ANY of those things elsewhere? Doubtful. Dean GS didn’t give a recitation of what “aims of education” meant. She gave us a history of real people who lived out those very aims at the very same university currently in the process of welcoming 1700+ matriculants. Food for thought.
Two “wow-worthy” takeaways:
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With the introduction of the social service minor, every single division and school is now open to undergraduate study. Every single one. Booth. Law. Harris. Med. And now SSA. Have I missed one? And this is a liberal arts education. Think about that. It’s worth at least another thread and round or two of debate.
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Sophonisba Breckinridge is, I believe, the namesake of Breckinridge House (and formerly Breckinridge Hall before it was shut down). We’ve discussed the fate of the houses in I-House and what a travesty it would be to retire them. Breck’s been around for awhile and the namesake seems too valuable to just go away (IMHO). It was at risk of getting retired a few years ago, before the administration changed their minds and moved it over to I-House. Given the history that Dean GS just gave us all, I truly wonder how anyone would have the gall to remove it now. And it’s not like SSA is some under-performing school. It’s one of the best in the country.
I also liked that every school is open to undergraduate study. That is so amazing.
@85bears46 thanks for the heads up.
@JBStillFlying Thank you for that great write up on the Aims of Education speech. It is fantastic to hear a different perspective and consider how others may see things differently. Also need to thank @marlowe1 for another nice write up on the speech. I smiled when I read That was most interesting in that write up referring to the biographical sketches, to which I reacted so differently. Lots of diversity of thought, right there!!
^ Guessing that the various student-led colloquia following the talk were just as diverse.
@newmaroonmom a tip - remind your S to pay attention to the opening & closing times of the dining halls. My S missed dinner by 2 minutes last night! Hutchison Commons has Saturday night swipes in case your S does not want to go off campus
Thanks @momo2x2018 - I hope your son found food somewhere else last night. It’s bad enough to have to walk 3/4 of a mile in pouring rain for food - really unfortunate to do that and find the dining hall is no longer serving 